


Battery City Interlude

by J (j_writes)



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-30
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time the Central Armory was robbed, no one was told.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battery City Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> written for No Tags 2011, with a prompt of "Bob/Frank, cops & robbers."

The first time the Central Armory was robbed, no one was told. Patrols increased, security tightened, and Korse walked around for weeks with a troubled expression, waiting for an explosion that never came.  
______________

"Are we there yet?" The prisoner's grin was insolent, unbearable.

Bob ignored him.

"I'm hungry." No response. "Mom!" The prisoner called up to the driver. "This guy keeps _looking_ at me." He waited a moment, then added, "your line is _don't make me turn this van around._ " He turned his eyes back to Bob, inspecting him. "I've gotta pee."

Bob looked at him impassively.

"I'll piss on your _face_ ," the prisoner continued.

"You don't have the aim," Bob told him absently. "And you should have gone before we left."

The thief let out a snort of laughter. "It _is_ just like a road trip with the family." He wiggled around a little in his seat. "Aside from the handcuffs, of course." He leered. "That's just like a road trip with other people."

Bob returned to ignoring him. He could feel the prisoner's eyes on him, sizing him up.

"How long's it been since BLInd stole your soul?" he finally asked.

Bob was trained better than to let himself wince. Instead, he raised an eyebrow. "I'm flattered you think I had one in the first place," he said. "Thought you people assumed all dracs rolled out of a factory on an assembly line."

"You don't know the first thing about what 'we people' think." There was a pause. "And you're not a drac."

"No?"

"No. Just a pawn." The thief suddenly sounded tired.

"That better or worse?"

"Jury's still out on that one."

"Long time since we saw a jury in these parts," Bob remarked.

"Yeah. Like I said. They're out."  
______________

The second time the Central Armory was robbed, an elite team was called in, and Bob found himself face to face with the thief for the first time, masked face staring directly at him through the pixels of a screen. His smile, stitched together in twisted rubber, was mocking.  
______________

"There's a word for it," the thief said, "for what you do."

"There's a word for you, too," Bob reminded him.

"There's a million words for me," the thief agreed. "A dictionary full of words. And none of them do me justice." His grin was totally out of proportion to the situation, and in another life, it would have startled Bob. Here, it just made him smile back, tightly.

"I've seen your face," Bob told him.

"My real one, or the one that I've shown you?"

Bob waved a hand towards the back of the van, indicating the world where the thief wore his mask. "The deliberate one, I guess. Fun Ghoul," he added, "that's what they call you."

"That's what _I_ call me," he agreed. "And you've seen me where? Not on wanted posters, I'd guess. That sort of thing is discouraged these days, isn't it? Any admission that the ranks of BLInd are fallible."

"They caught you on camera," Bob said. "A time or two ago."

"Caught," the thief replied, "or were meant to see. One of the above."  
______________

The third time the Central Armory was robbed, nothing was taken. A message was left instead, in scrawled and dripping paint across a concrete wall. The wall was knocked down rather than being painted over. Maybe it was supposed to be a warning, but instead it just looked like an act of cowardice.  
______________

"Take an average of everyone you've ever met," the thief said, "every face that hides itself in the walls that you work in, and that's you. That's what you are. Painfully mediocre."

"And you?"

"I'm a fucking anomaly, man."

"You say that like it's something to be proud of."

"If you think it isn't, I'm going to have to rethink that whole soul thing." His smile was bitter.  
______________

The fourth time the Central Armory was robbed, no one noticed. The inventory was carefully doctored, the relevant boxes were filled with dummy supplies, and no one saw the thief slipping in or out. As far as anyone knew, the building was only ever broken into four times, and this was not the fourth.  
______________

"You know, for a government, you've got some pretty questionable security."

"We're not the government," Bob was quick to point out.

"Could've fooled me. But no, that's right, you're independent contractors. Not beholden to any kind of regulation." He paused, smirked. "Independent. There's a laugh for you." He peered at Bob closely. "Do you even remember how to laugh?"

"Haven't heard a joke funny enough to warrant it in a while," Bob conceded.

"No?" the thief asked. "How about this?" His handwave seemed to encompass the whole desert – the complex they had left behind, the city they were headed to. "Seems like one hell of a joke to me. Hi-fucking-larious."  
______________

The fifth time the Central Armory was robbed, the perpetrator was caught. No one thought to check if anything was missing.  
______________

"What are you going to do now?" the thief asked him.

"What do you mean by 'now'?" Bob replied. "I'm going to do what I've done from the day I was hired by this company. I'm going to do my job. "

"I mean now that the game of cat and mouse is over," the prisoner clarified.

"Go onto the next game, I guess," Bob said with a shrug, looking out the window at the blinding desert. "That's how games like this work, isn't it?"

"Didn't you ever wonder, though, while it was happening?"

"Wonder what?"

"Whether you were the cat or the mouse?"  
______________

The day the Central Armory exploded, the chaos that followed completely obscured the insignificant detail of a transport van flipping over somewhere in the desert, spilling its contents into the burning sand.  
______________

Bob woke in a hospital ward, alone. He responded vaguely to the nurses' questions. No, he didn't remember anything after leaving the Armory. No, he had no idea who had dropped him at the hospital. Yes, he was an employee of BLInd, and no, he didn't know why they hadn't come looking for him.

He stared at the walls, and he imagined conversation. Dark eyes squinting in a smile at him from under floppy hair. A challenge.

 _"And how would I find it?"_

 _"If you were as good as they say, Bryar, you wouldn't have to ask."_

 _"You know my name." It was barely a question._

 _"Of course I do. Just like I'm pretty damn sure you know mine."_

 _"Know your enemy?"_

 _"Know your something, anyway."_

 _Bob eyed him closely. "You don't consider me the enemy anymore?"_

 _"Never did, really."_

He stared at the wall, blank, white, and he laughed.  
______________

Another wall, formerly white, now stained with dripping paint. The cameras had caught it, before it had been knocked down, and no one understood the words that day.

 _You're looking the wrong way._

That day, no one understood the words. Two robberies later, they would.  
_____________

Bob was discharged from the hospital into the hands of two guards. Perfunctory, half-hearted security, and it was easy enough for him to elude them. He found himself on a road, by foot, uniform jacket discarded, wearing only his pants and a t-shirt, squinting into the sun.

A sign cast a shadow across him, and he looked up.

 _Battery City Limits_

"Yes," he agreed aloud. "It does."

He turned, and he walked into the desert.


End file.
